Unreal Engine
The Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal. Although initially developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of other genres, including stealth, fighting games, MMORPGs, and other RPGs. With its code written in C++, the Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability and is a tool used by many game developers today, with it being source-available. The most recent version is Unreal Engine 4, which was released in 2014. History First generation: Unreal & Unreal Tournament The first generation Unreal Engine was developed by Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games. Having been programming since an early age and creating editing tools for ZZT (1991) and Jill of the Jungle (1992), Sweeney began writing the engine in 1995 for the production of a game that would later become known as Unreal, a first-person shooter. After years in development, it debuted with the game's release in 1998, although MicroProse and Legend Entertainment had possessed the technology much earlier, licensing the engine in 1996. Both software and hardware rendering were present in the foundational software, as well as collision detection, colored lighting, and a rudimentary version of texture filtering. Even though Unreal was developed to compete with id Software, the game was praised by John Carmack for its use of 16-bit color and ambient effects such as volumetric fog. "I doubt any important game will be designed with 8-bit color in mind from now on. Unreal has done an important thing in pushing toward direct color, and this gives the artists a lot more freedom," he said in an article written by Geoff Keighley for GameSpot. "Light blooms spheres of light, fog volumes, and composite skies were steps I was planning on taking, but Epic got there first with Unreal." The engine also provided a level editor, UnrealEd (formerly Unreal World Editor ), that had support for real-time constructive solid geometry operations as early as 1996, allowing mappers to change the level layout "on the fly". Other features implemented during the engine's development included real-time direct illumination and light sourcing, which were respectively integrated in 1995 and 1997. In addition to having support for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac, Unreal Tournament also opened the platform to PlayStation 2 and, with the help of Secret Level, to Dreamcast. By late 1999, The New York Times indicated that the number of external projects using Epic's technology was 16, naming the likes of Deus Ex, The Wheel of Time and Duke Nukem Forever, the title from 3D Realms that was set to debut the Duke Nukem series on the GameCube console. Unlike id Software, whose engine business was only based in supplying the source code, Epic provided technical support for licensees and met with them to discuss improvements to its game development system. While it cost around $3 million to produce and licenses for up to $350,000, Epic gave modders the ability to create their own worlds with the incorporation of UnrealEd and a scripting language called UnrealScript in its games, sparking a community of enthusiasts around a game engine built to be extensible over multiple generations of games. }} Unreal Engine 2 '' was built in Unreal Engine 2.]] In October 1998, IGN reported, based on an interview with affiliate Voodoo Extreme, that Sweeney was doing research for his next-generation engine. With development starting a year later, the second version made its debut in 2002 with America's Army, a free multiplayer shooter developed by the U.S. Army as a recruitment tool. Though based on previous technology, this generation saw the renderer completely re-written, and the inclusion of a variety of features such as the Matinee cinematic editing tool, export plug-ins for 3D Studio Max and Maya, and the Karma physics engine, a tool by Math Engine that powered the ragdoll physics in Unreal Tournament 2003. In addition, it featured UnrealEd 2, which debuted with the previous generation of the engine and was shortly followed later by UnrealEd 3. Other engine elements were also updated, with improved assets as well as adding support for the Xbox. Unreal Championship was one of the first games to utilize Microsoft's Xbox Live. UE2.5, an update to the original version of UE2, improved rendering performance and added vehicles physics, a particle system editor for UnrealEd, and 64-bit support in Unreal Tournament 2004. A specialized version of UE2 called UE2X was used for Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict on the original Xbox platform, featuring optimizations specific to that console. In March 2011, Ubisoft Montreal revealed that UE2 was successfully running on the Nintendo 3DS. Unreal Engine 3 Screenshots of Unreal Engine 3 were presented in 2004, at which point the engine had already been in development for over 18 months. Unlike Unreal Engine 2, which still supported fixed-function pipeline, Unreal Engine 3 was designed to take advantage of fully programmable shader hardware. All lighting and shadowing calculations were done per-pixel, instead of per-vertex. On the rendering side, Unreal Engine 3 provided support for a gamma-correct high-dynamic range renderer. The first games released using Unreal Engine 3 were Gears of War for Xbox 360, and RoboBlitz for Windows, which were both released on November 7, 2006. Initially, Unreal Engine 3 only supported Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 platforms, while iOS (first demonstrated with Epic Citadel) and Android were added later in 2010, with Infinity Blade being the first iOS title and Dungeon Defenders the first Android title. OS X support was added in 2011. The same year it was announced that the engine would support Adobe Flash Player 11 through the Stage 3D hardware-accelerated APIs and that it was being used in two Wii U games, Batman: Arkham City and Aliens: Colonial Marines. In 2013, Epic teamed-up with Mozilla to bring Unreal Engine 3 to HTML5. Using the asm.js sublanguage and Emscripten compiler, they were able to port the engine to JavaScript and WebGL in four days. Throughout the lifetime of UE3, significant updates were incorporated, including improved destructible environments, soft body dynamics, large crowd simulation, iPod Touch functionality, Steamworks integration, a real-time global illumination solution, and stereoscopic 3D on Xbox 360 via TriOviz for Games Technology. DirectX 11 support was demonstrated with the Samaritan demo, which was unveiled at the 2011 Game Developers Conference and built by Epic Games in a close partnership with NVIDIA, with engineers working around the country to push real-time graphics to a new high point. Unreal Development Kit While Unreal Engine 3 was quite open for modders to work with, the ability to publish and sell games made using UE3 was restricted to licensees of the engine. However, in November 2009, Epic released a free version of UE3's SDK, called the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), that is available to the general public. In December 2010, the kit was updated to include support for creating iOS games and apps. Unreal Engine 4 In August 2005, Mark Rein, the vice-president of Epic Games, revealed that Unreal Engine 4 had been in development since 2003. Until 2008, development was "basically" done by Sweeney. The engine targets the eighth generation of consoles, PCs, and Tegra K1-based devices running Android announced in January 2014 at CES. In February 2012, Rein said "people are going to be shocked later this year when they see Unreal Engine 4". Unreal Engine 4 was unveiled to limited attendees at the 2012 Game Developers Conference, and video of the engine being demonstrated by technical artist Alan "Talisman" Willard was released to the public in June 7, 2012 via GameTrailers TV. One of the major features planned for UE4 was real-time global illumination using voxel cone tracing, eliminating pre-computed lighting. However, this feature has been replaced with a similar but less computationally-expensive algorithm prior to release for all platforms including the PC due to performance concerns. UE4 also includes new developer features to reduce iteration time, and allows updating of C++ code while the engine is running. The new "Blueprints" visual scripting system (a successor to UE3's "Kismet") allows for rapid development of game logic without using C++, and includes live debugging. The result is reduced iteration time, and less of a divide between technical artists, designers, and programmers. On March 19, 2014, at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Epic Games released Unreal Engine 4 through a new licensing model. For a monthly subscription at , developers were given access to the full version of the engine, including the C++ source code, which could be downloaded via GitHub. Any released product was charged with a 5% royalty of gross revenues. The first game released using Unreal Engine 4 was Daylight, developed with early access to the engine and released on April 29, 2014. On September 4, 2014, Epic released Unreal Engine 4 to schools and universities for free, including personal copies for students enrolled in accredited video game development, computer science, art, architecture, simulation, and visualization programs. On February 19, 2015, Epic launched Unreal Dev Grants, a $5 million development fund aiming to provide grants to creative projects using Unreal Engine 4. During the March 2015 Game Developers Conference, Epic announced that they would release Unreal Engine 4, along with all future updates, for free for all users. In exchange, Epic established a selective royalty schedule, asking for 5% of revenue for products that make more than $3,000 per quarter, as well as establishing an Unreal Marketplace for users to sell content with Epic taking a cut of sales from this as well. Sweeney stated that when they moved to the subscription model in 2014, use of Unreal grew by 10 times and through many smaller developers, and believed that they would draw even more uses through this new pricing scheme. In an attempt to attract Unreal Engine developers, Oculus VR announced in October 2016 that it will pay royalty fees for all Unreal-powered Oculus Rift titles published on their store for up to the first $5 million of gross revenue per game. To prepare for the release of its free-to-play "Battle Royale" mode in Fortnite in September 2017, Epic had to make a number of Unreal Engine modifications that helped it to handle a large number (up to 100) of connections to the same server while still retaining high bandwidth, and to improve the rendering of a large open in-game world. Epic will incorporate these changes into future updates of the Unreal Engine. With the opening of the Epic Games Store in December 2018, Epic will not charge the 5% revenue fee on games that use the Unreal Engine and released through the Epic Games Stores, absorbing that cost as part of the base 12% cut Epic is taking to cover other costs. Supported platforms * macOS * Linux * SteamOS * HTML5 * iOS * Android * Nintendo Switch * PlayStation 4 * Xbox One * Magic Leap One * HTC Vive * Oculus Rift * PlayStation VR * Google Daydream * OSVR * Samsung Gear VR * HoloLens 2 }} UnrealScript | developer = Tim Sweeney | typing = Static, strong, safe | influenced by = C++, Java | operating system = Cross-platform (multi-platform) | website = api.unrealengine.com | file ext = .uc .uci .upkg }} UnrealScript (often abbreviated to UScript) was Unreal Engine's native scripting language used for authoring game code and gameplay events before the release of Unreal Engine 4. The language was designed for simple, high-level game programming. The UnrealScript interpreter was programmed by Sweeney, who also created an earlier game scripting language, ZZT-oop. Similar to Java, UnrealScript is object-oriented without multiple inheritance (classes all inherit from a common Object class), and classes are defined in individual files named for the class they define. Unlike Java, UnrealScript does not have object wrappers for primitive types. Interfaces are only supported in Unreal Engine generation 3 and a few Unreal Engine 2 games. UnrealScript supports operator overloading, but not method overloading, except for optional parameters. At the 2012 Game Developers Conference, Epic announced that UnrealScript was being removed from Unreal Engine 4 in favor of C++. Visual scripting would be supported by the Blueprints Visual Scripting system, a replacement for the earlier Kismet visual scripting system. }} Unreal Engine Marketplace With Unreal Engine 4, Epic opened the Unreal Engine Marketplace in September 2014. The Marketplace is a digital storefront that allows content creators and developers to provide art assets, models, sounds, environments, code snippets, and other features that others could purchase, along with tutorials and other guides. Some content is provided free by Epic, including previously offered Unreal assets and tutorials. Prior to July 2018, Epic took a 30% share of the sales but due to the success of Unreal and Fortnite Battle Royale, Epic retroactively reduced its take to 12%. Awards * Technology & Engineering Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for "3D Engine Software for the Production of Animation" in 2018 * Game Developer Magazine Front Line Award for Best Game Engine for 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 * Develop Industry Excellence Award for Best Engine for 2009, 2010, 2011 2013, 2016, 2017, and 2018 * Guinness World Record for most successful video game engine See also * List of Unreal Engine games References Further reading * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * External links * Category:1998 software Category:3D graphics software Category:Articles containing video clips Category:Epic Games Category:Game engines for Linux Category:Game engines that support Mantle Category:Game engines that support Vulkan Category:Global illumination software Category:IPhone video game engines Unreal S Category:Unreal (video game series) Category:Unreal Engine Category:Video game development software Category:Video game engines Category:Video game IDE Category:Virtual reality